


Afraid

by glassgoblin



Series: Random Rogues [7]
Category: Star Wars Legends: X-wing Series - Aaron Allston & Michael Stackpole, Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars: Rebellion Era - All Media Types
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-22
Updated: 2014-12-22
Packaged: 2018-03-02 18:07:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2821403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glassgoblin/pseuds/glassgoblin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He was afraid sometimes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Afraid

**Author's Note:**

> Seventh in series of my self-made challenge.

At the Academy they were told that if they were afraid that it meant that they were weak; that they should use the righteousness of their actions to be a shield against fear. They were told that they should not fear for their own lives because it was better to think of themselves as having already died whenever they were launched in their fighters, and fearing the inevitable would only make it happen that much faster. He never bought into those beliefs though, and had trouble with the idea that the Empire had any righteousness within its doctrines long before he graduated.

Derek Klivian could admit that he was sometimes afraid. He had a healthy confidence in his ability as a pilot, and soldier, for the Rebellion, and he trusted in his fellow pilots in Rogue Squadron to have his back when they went into battle together. Usually he could use his fear to keep himself sharp and focused in the midst of firefights. Sometimes it was that fear which prevented him from being too focused and missing something that was on his tail.

Fear for his own life wasn’t something that he often felt though, and he didn’t like the idea of flying with people so willing to die without a good reason for the sacrifice. Flying was what made him feel most alive, and most of the fear he had on missions was for others not himself. He was afraid of losing his friends, his fellows, the people they were fighting for and protecting. So often the odds facing them were very bad for their survival, especially when he had just defected and began flying for the Rebellion.

The Rebellion had done something for him from the very beginning that made him want to give more and be more, in service of the cause and those people he had thrown in with, than anything the Empire had ever engendered in him. Even if some had questioned his loyalties when he and Biggs Darklighter had brought the Rand Ecliptic to the Rebels, there were more who were willing to accept him and bring him into the fold. He had met people in the Rebellion who were like brothers to him now, and his fear was in letting them down, or letting them die.

They didn’t often talk about it in explicit terms, but every time they were in the midst of battle and something nearly happened to Wedge he could hear that fear reflected in Wes’s voice, or Tycho’s, just as it was when they were in a tight spot, or he was. Tycho might have been the philosophical one, and Wedge was the one to compartmentalize everything. Wes was most likely to ignore those feelings and gloss over it with a back-slap and joke, but Hobbie was the one who saw it all, knew what it was and kept his peace on the subject because it would be too painful to express such feelings and then lose any one of them. It was love. He loved them like brothers. He knew that they felt the same.

His greatest fear was to lose them in battle or due to drifting apart as they left to finally have lives outside of the fighting and wars that had been the background for almost the entirety of their lives. He was afraid that there would be nothing out there for him to go to if he stopped flying, no one to cling to anymore, and that ultimately he would be a survivor with nothing left to hold onto except memories. He was afraid and that was what drove him to fight with his every breath because he was fighting for the lives of his friends.


End file.
